


last minute | tony stark

by starkau



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, WHAT would he do without you, is this how tags work? HI THIS IS MY FIRST POST, tony's a narcissistic but selfless shit as always and you just barely put up with him, you save tony for once
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 12:22:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14769530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkau/pseuds/starkau
Summary: "He needs backup," you say, "32nd and Fuller, Bank of Amer ― ""No," Tony's voice crackles through, interrupting the line. "Y/N, I've got at least half their army here. That keeps the rest of the city less occupied. Forget about me."He used your first name. You exhale, reaching forward and hitting a button, muting you from Steve and Natasha as you say to Tony and Tony only, "This is a suicide mission, Stark."





	last minute | tony stark

"We're all clear here," Steve’s voice comes through. The sudden clarity of his voice and the lack of background sound solidifies his statement, but it’s too early to feel any relief.

"Yeah, okay, definitely not clear here," another voice manages to grunt out. The gnashing of metal against metal bangs through the computer next and you exhale at the sound, knowing immediately who's on this end. You relay the message over to the man standing next to you and his shoulders tense again, pressing palms against the counter.

"Stark, give us a head count," Fury demands from beside you. "How many are we talking about?"

"Let's just say ― " _Smash_. " ― I lost count at thirty." _Smash. Bang. Explosion_. Damn, he sounds tired ― and not the kind of tired you are after every day of work, but like he's about to fall apart any second now, breath heavy and sporadic in your ears. You drum your fingers on the table, a nervous tic. He's Iron Man. He'll be fine no matter how exhausted he is.

Right?

"More than thirty," you tell your boss, glancing up at the screen and feeling your stomach plummet further. Your voice lowers so only you can hear it to exhale, "A lot more than thirty."

The entire room goes silent, watching as the Bank of America's security camera projects up and shows a man in a red and gold armor and helmet hurtling through wave after wave of plated nemeses; he's putting up a great fight, arms but a red blur and the beams of deadly light shooting out from his wrists searing enemies clean in half, but it seems like he found himself in the unlucky, most populated zone in the city and they seem to just keep coming. You blow air out through your cheeks, eyes unable to leave the broad figure in the low-quality live footage, fingers toying with the microphone at the corner of your mouth.

"Captain? Romanoff?"

"Yeah," comes the unison reply of the two Avengers, and you squint at the street sign in the corner of the video.

"Ton ― Stark needs backup," you say, nearly letting his first name slip, and God knows unprofessionalism will not help anyone out in this situation. "32nd and Fuller, Bank of Amer ― "

"No," Tony's voice crackles through, interrupting the line. "Y/N, I've got at least half their army here." _Wham. Thwack_. "That keeps the rest of the city less occupied. Forget about me."

He used your first name. You exhale, reaching forward and hitting a button, muting you from Steve and Natasha as you say to Tony and Tony only, "This is a suicide mission."

 _Pow_. A cuss, then a deafening bang and the sound of something sliding across rocks. Your head snaps up to the screen only to see that he's disappeared from the camera and the enemies are advancing, trudging forward and out of the frame toward where Tony's undoubtedly lying.

"Tony," you say, heart skipping a beat in frantic nervousness.

"Hello?" Steve demands.

"I have to do this, Y/N," Tony says, voice almost inaudible thanks to the crackling and static of his earpiece. First name again.

"I don't care if you're a nationally recognized hero and the richest man in the country," you breathe into your mic. "If you die, Stark, I'll kill you myself."

He laughs ― laughs, in a time like this, and the sound both mends your heart and breaks it. You sniffle, wiping at your eyes even though you're not crying like you're daring the tears to fall if they have the guts.

"Y/N, tell us what we have to do," Natasha says.

"I’m sorry, Y/N," Tony whispers. Then, from out of nowhere, a column of blinding light hurtles toward the camera. It shatters. The footage goes black.

"No," you say. You rise from your seat, fingers tight around your earpiece. "Tony, don't ― "

His end dies with a sharp crack and the sound fades off into static. You comb a hand through your hair in distress.

"Y/N, what is this?" Fury shouts, pointing at the screen. "What's Stark doing?"

"Y/N! Talk to me!" Steve bellows. You unmute yourself but keep your voice lowered, holding a finger toward Fury. "I need a gun."

_"What?"_

"A gun," you say, hands shaking as you press them against the table. "A big gun that can take out, say, ten or twenty enemies with one trigger." Silence. Fury starts to walk over. You breathe. "Hurry."

"Not guns," Natasha says. "Grenades."

"Can you do your job or not, Y/N?" Fury interrogates, eyes radiating with the word that makes his last name. "I want to know why Stark just cut off all communication with our base."

"He did _what_?" Steve shouts.

"I don't know why," you say, then unzip your coat, tossing it on the chair to reveal a tight, thermal bodysuit underneath. "But he's not thinking straight." You tear the tie from your bun and shake your hair down. Fury stares in bewilderment. "I'm going out there."

 _"What?"_ Three voices go off at once, and you slap your hair into a ponytail before starting to walk up the slope and toward a door.

"Y/N," Fury shouts. "You can't break every protocol we have about desk agents because of Stark, I don't care what he is to you. You step through that door ― "

His voice heightens when you stop in front of it. You flick open a number pad.

" ― you lose your job."

Easy decision.

The cool air hits your face as you enter the lab, wisps of smoke weaving between your ankles and out the door as it opens. You look around, scanning the vicinity, before you're throwing open a chest and picking up a grenade in each hand, breathing deeply at the presence of the two orbs of destruction in your hands now prone to go off at a single pull of the string. You decide to take another one just in case and go, ignoring the look of utter disbelief on Fury's face as the glass door slides shut and he watches his best desk agent disappear from his sight.

"Y/N," Steve's voice comes again. "I know you and Stark have this thing going on, but I didn't think it was half worth losing your job and your life in the same ten minutes."

"Hawk," you say, ignoring Steve. "Clint, can you hear me?"

A crackle goes off. A throat clears. He sounds breathless and busy, judging by the sound of whizzing arrows you pick up in the background. "Yeah, I can."

"I need the best angle to attack the corner of 32nd and Fuller via explosives, as fast as you can," you say. "Captain, Widow, is it possible to head that way right now? I don't know how fast I can be."

"Still not sure you know what you're doing," Steve says. "But yes. We can."

All of their lines die, sure signs that they're doing what you asked. Ignoring the blossom of pride in your chest, you tear a parachute from the emergency pack at the end of the hallway, then put it back, remembering that you've been trained to jump from high places while some other people on this ship surely can't. You glance out the window. The ship seems to be skimming the rooftops anyway. "Any minute now, Hawk."

"I'm a couple blocks too far from target," he says, wind roaring in his mic. "But from here, it seems like the building right under you is the Bank of America."

Your stomach lurches and you face the door, shoulders rising and falling. You shake the hair from your eyes. "Perfect."

You kick the door open and jump.

The sting that shoots down your back is bad, but isn't so bad that you can't brace yourself for impact; you roll, once, twice, thrice on the gravel-covered roof of the building and then spring to your feet, cradling the grenades to your stomach, aware that you're quite literally holding death in your hands. You dash forward, peering over the edge and flinching at the destruction you see on the ground; it seems like everything in Stark's way was destroyed, including but not limited to the enemy. A broken security camera resides a couple feet below you. Your head swivels to the right just in time for you to gasp and duck, narrowly missing a blue laser that's fired from a smoking hand socket.

"You okay, Y/N?" Clint's voice comes back. You'd forgotten he was still there.

You back up. The Chitauri raises its arm again, but you're ready this time; gently tossing the three grenades to the rooftop, you use your hands to whip out your revolver and send three shots straight at its face, then dropping down to fire a kick at the back of its knees with a swift grunt. It loses balance and a last kick to its chest sends it falling twenty stories down. You straighten, panting. Boys in high school used to do that last tactic to you all the time. Who knew it'd come to real use someday?

"Peachy," you exhale, collecting the grenades back.

"Hey, chaos at three o'clock." Your eyes dart to your right and you curse; what looks like a sea of Chitauri have formed a massive mob in the middle of the street, so big that you can't believe you didn't see the clouds of dust and the occasional beams of light that shot out of the area. You start to run, nearly holding your breath in anticipation as you leap from narrow-distanced roof to roof, trying hard to stay unseen and unheard now that you know the sharpness of the Chitauri's senses.

"I'm getting close now," you whisper. "Where are you guys? Captain?"

"A couple miles away," his line comes back. "A few minutes more."

You express agreement and make your way toward the Chitauri, the grenades heavy in your hands. Tony is in the center of it all, his metallic red figure enlarging as you get nearer, and it's easy to see that he won't last long the way he's fighting, using all his limbs and all his strength to avoid being killed. He needs help badly and you know he can see that, but something twinges inside of you knowing that he still rejected assistance in a time like this.

That's the stupid, heroic side of him.

And you won't let him go through this alone any longer.

"STARK!"

His eyes dart up. The Chitauri swivel around, distracted by the new voice. You stand on the edge of the roof, regal and determined, tugging the string of the first grenade.

 _Run_.

He does. He fires up his thrusters and you hurtle the grenade to the ground, relishing in the deafening bang and the fleet of Chitauri bodies that go sailing dismembered through the air; still, many remain, and you waste no time in pulling the second one and aiming for the center of the mob. Another explosion. Fire. You glance over to see that Tony's disappeared from view and the knowledge grants you momentary relief; but that dissolves when you swallow and look down. They've started to climb the building and yet there's still so many on the ground, but one thing's for certain ― Iron Man isn't their target anymore.

"Captain," you say, voice shaking as you step back. The first Chitauri clambers onto the roof and growls, low, menacing. "Nat, a little help."

"Almost. We see you. Hang in there."

The Chitauri roars. A beam of blue light fires out of its wrist. You snap to the side and curse, the skin of your side breaking open and knocking you to the ground.

"Y/N?" Natasha voice comes in. "Y/N, a couple more seconds ― "

"Stay back," you whisper, the last grenade solid in your fist. "Stay where you are. Right there."

They do. You lift your head weakly and stare the Chitauri in the face, then looking behind it at the tens more that have climbed to the roof.

"Eat this," you say, pulling the string, then lowering your voice so it's overflowed with contempt and pure, untarnished hatred, " _fuckers_."

Bang.

A sea of Chitauri soars off the roof. Fire ignites. Among it all, a figure lies, unmoving.

"Go, Cap, I got this. Y/N!" Natasha crouches down and rolls to your side, firing four shots at the remaining aliens on the roof and then cradling your head. You see the Captain vanish as he drops to the ground. "Oh, nuh uh, you're not dying on me today."

The flames are too bright and too hot for your liking. You cough and taste blood, lifting the hem of your shirt to see a charred, bleeding gash in your side. You go limp, exhausted and in pain.

"Where's Stark?" You breathe, trying to catch your breath. "Tony ― is he okay?" 

"We didn't see Tony, Y/N, and you have to put him from your mind right now," Natasha says. "You just saved a lot of lives, but unless you get on the ship, you'll lose your own."

"I got fired," you exhale, putting a hand on your forehead. "Fury kicked me out."

"Fury," a familiar voice says, a thud going off as a man drops onto the roof, "is irrelevant right now. More irrelevant than he usually is. I got her, Romanoff."

Natasha pauses, exchanging glances with Tony and nodding. Her hands under your head are gone, and you see her jump off the edge of the building before looking up at a pair of illuminated, rectangular eyes belonging to the mask of Iron Man.

"Have you lost your fucking mind?" He demands, voice muffled through the mask.

You can't reply, suddenly finding that your throat feels uncomfortably sticky, throbbing with a dull ache that's definitely coming from your side. For a moment he doesn't say another word, just stares at you through glowing slits until finally clicking something on the side of his head. The mask rises. His face, charred and bleeding from a couple small cuts but handsome nonetheless, is cold and calculating, brown eyes chilling and undoubtedly, undisguisedly furious.

"Hey." His voice remains the same, but you're almost sure you hear it soften ever so slightly as he cradles the back of your head, moving to kneel beside you. "Hey. Don't do this to me."

Your eyes fall shut. If you really think about it, you're sure you can feel yourself pooling out onto the roof. Another hand fastens around your shoulder, shaking you.

"No, I'm not taking this. Don't be a brat." He shakes harder. You merely loll in his grasp and the sight is far, far too close to the image he's had in his nightmares too many times of your dead body. His voice rises, dull panic surfacing in his chest and he shakes you again, this time drawing your head into his lap. "Y/N, damn it, open your eyes!"

You do, but the word he'd use wouldn't be open so much as it'd be just manage to peel back, looking at him with a drowsy look in your eyes. That's not good.

"Look at me." He cups your cheek. Something blows up behind him but he takes no notice, too intent on you and how quickly you're losing blood. "You let your eyes close a single time and I'm not talking to you for a month, you got that?"

You manage to keep your eyelids back but your vision's starting to blur, just clear enough for you to watch Tony hit a button and his chest plate sink away. He takes the jacket he has on underneath off and pulls up your shirt, leaning in to wrap the cloth around your side and keep it there. You wince at the pain but it soon starts to fade as you finally stop bleeding out. Tony starts to come back into focus.

"That was good," he says quietly. "That was good. Thank you for cooperating with me for once. I swear you're worse than Dum-E.”

The weakest of smiles tugs at your lips. Tony's never been more relieved to see it, the coil in his chest loosening. His eyes dart over the scene below him; it's a Chitauri bloodbath, but just because Captain and Natasha are here now doesn't mean it'll be any less dangerous of a situation. He looks back down at you.

"I need to get you back on the ship."

You shake your head, your hand fastening around his metal one and sitting up. Your hair's in your eyes. Tony feels an insatiable urge to brush the locks away, and he’s never been one to put too much effort into fighting off his urges — he reaches toward you and his metal hand melts away into the suit just in time for his fingertips to come in contact with your cheek, gently sweeping the hair from your eyes. Even in this situation, you are as undoubtedly, easily the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.

"I'm okay," you say, your voice quivering. "I'm okay, see? I can sit. No problem."

"Don't lie to me," Tony replies steadily. "Your eyes are crossed. You're getting back on the ship."

"Stop." You clamber to your feet, awkwardly, slowly. Your hands seize Tony's elbows before you can lose balance and crumple to the ground again. "I know that voice. I'm not an injured person, Tony.”

"Okay. Here's how things are gonna go." Tony says, ignoring you. "I'm flying you back to the ship whether you like it or not and you're not going to fight back when I plunk your ass back where it belongs. Understood?"

"No. See? I'm standing. I'm on my two feet. Look." You bounce up and down on the balls of your feet in a manner that tells Tony you've lost too much blood to really be okay. "I'm okay."

"You're not okay, you're delusional," Tony says. "Delusional and injured. I'm taking you back to the ship now."

"I am not!" Your voice gets louder, your volume heightening. You jump at a sudden explosion that goes off on the ground below you. "I am completely fine! You're taking pity on me for no reason and I'm telling you, Tony," you say, prodding a finger into his heart, "you can't tell me what to ― "

One of his arms circles your knees, the other your neck, and then he turns on his thrusters. You let out a shriek and scramble to cling onto him as you gain altitude way, way too fast for your liking; before you know it, the massive shape of the ship is reappearing and he's soaring through a broken window and landing inside, setting you down gently.

"Tony!" You exclaim, turning to him with furious eyes, slapping his forehead sharply. "Take this thing off so you can look me in the eyes, you asshole!”

"No." His hands go to your hips, keeping you away. "Go home. You're blood deprived."

"Fine," you snap, then reach forward to hit a button on the side of his head. His mask flies up and you look him in the eye, channeling all ounces of your energy to this moment. "I wanted to stay down there, Tony, because Fury fired me and I can't do shit up here, and I don't need you to protect me or decide for me what I can't or can't do."

"I know," Tony says. "I'm serious," you say, although you're a little caught off guard by his agreeable reply. "Never again, Tony. I'm not another one of the people you choose to risk your life to save. I can fend for myself. I can, and I will."

"I know," Tony says. You pause, your eyes locked in emotionless silence. You clear your throat. _"I mean it."_

And then he's kissing you.

Tony doesn't know if he'll come back from this alive. He has no idea what today's outcome will be. All he knows is that you and your delusional, irritating, headstrong self mean absolutely fucking everything to him and he needs you to know that before he jumps off this ship and dives to his potential death, so here he is, kissing you, and kissing you hard. It's a blur from the moment he leans in; all he remembers is that your heart is beating as fast as his is, that your hands are on the shoulders of his suit and that there's so much electricity between the two of you that he swears his armor's charging.

He pulls away. He brushes a metal thumb along your cheek.

"I mean it, too."

And, with those words, his hands are dropping away from your waist, he's taking a step backward, and he drops off the ship.

 

___________________

 

"Ow.”

You draw back, wary. Tony's eyes shut in a soft flinch, eyebrow twitching.

"Sorry."

He narrows his eyes. "You'd think after saving your life you'd treat me with just a little more caution."

You scoff, making sure he feels the soft spray of saliva that comes with your sound of _pfft_ and smirking as he makes a show of wiping his face.

"Don't push it," you say, smiling. "I have the power to put you in a state of very, very bad pain right now. All I'd have to do is put some pressure, and then the mighty Tony Stark would _wither_ in my hands ― "

"You wouldn’t dare," he says. “Because I saved your life.”

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

You press on his shoulder. Tony inhales sharply. You can't help it and smile, running the antiseptic towel over the cut as a form of apology.

"God," Tony grumbles, face shades paler at the flame-like pain that just shot through his arm. "I should've let you rot on that roof."

Your smile widens and you toss the towel into the nearby bin, dusting off your hands. "You're done. I did every cut I could find."

"About time. The world should be glad you're not a nurse." Tony moves his legs off the bed, sitting up to look at you. "But thanks. I guess."

You give him a smile. “You're welcome, Stark. It's the least I can do."

It’s been thirteen hours since the Chitauri invasion of New York City and the ship is on its way back to the massive landing pad it started that is a day’s worth of flying away. Tony took a well-deserved slumber for eleven out of the thirteen and only just clambered into the infirmary to get the wounds on his body checked ― interestingly, despite the presence of actual nurses and professional medicators on board, it’s you that Fury drops a message for to go tend to Tony, doing so in the iciest manner possible; he is clearly not enjoying the fact that he fired you yesterday and yet you’re still here.

A moment of silence passes, and moments of silence are not common with Tony. He looks like he has something to say and you're sure he does, by the way his lips are just about to open and the unsettled, thoughtful look in his eye ― but you want to talk first this time. You count four of your own loud, prominent heartbeats before you inhale to speak.

“You know,” you begin. You’re familiar with his intense gaze by now, but right now you find it hard to hold eye contact considering the content of this conversation. You look at his lap instead. “I’ll never forget how much you scared me on the phone. When you said to forget about you and then apologized like you were breaking some kind of promise to me, like you weren’t going to come back. I don’t even remember what my thought process was during those few minutes.”

A small smile tugs at Tony’s lips at these words. He brings one of your hands close, brushing a thumb along your knuckles.

“It was like how, um, electric cars run out of gasoline and go purely on reserve battery instead. It was like that for me. I had run out of the ability to have coherent, functioning thought and ran completely on panic and worry you would do something stupid out there.” You sigh, your eyes flickering upwards to look into his. “The only thing I can think about now is how happy I am with how things turned out, because there could be bits and pieces of you floating in the stratosphere right now but instead you’re in front of me in one piece, being a pompous asshole as usual, but I don’t know what I’d do without it. Without you.”

“ _You_ ,” Tony says. “You think _I_ scared _you_ yesterday.”

 _That’s_ the takeaway he got from all that? Embarrassing.

“Y/N, let me explain something to you.” Tony takes a deep breath. “When I think about my work, I think about things exploding and things dying and cities being torn apart and entire planets hanging by a thread. Unpleasant thoughts. Dark thoughts. But _you_ ― you are the solace to all of that. Returning to you is returning home. Nothing can hurt me when I’m with you. And seeing the two worlds combine yesterday was my worst nightmare, because I almost couldn’t protect you and I almost didn’t. I almost lost the one thing I can’t live without.” He points, looking away right when he concludes with, “That’s you.”

You don’t realize the situation happening behind your eyes until you hear yourself sniffle and realize your eyelashes are wet when you blink a couple seconds later. “When did you get so good at this?”

“At what?”

“Expressing ― God, I don’t know ―” Great. You’re crying. _“ ― human feeling.”_

You dissolve, unable to get the rest of your words out; Tony wordlessly slides off the side of the bed, landing gently on his two feet seconds before he’s crushing you to his chest and you’re surrounded by a bubble of what is gloriously him and the smell of his cologne and aftershave. The security and comfort of his arms just spurs on the waterworks more and you positively melt in his arms, leaning your forehead under his chin and bringing your arms around his waist, completely belittled against his broad frame in the warmest, safest way possible. He holds onto you like you’ll vanish if he lets go, resting his chin on your hair and lifting a hand to cradle the back of your head and you hear the thud, thud, thud of his pulse as well as the slight tremor of his breathing above you.

Right here is where you want to stay for the rest of your life; absolutely unafraid of anything that’s out there as long as you’re with him, as long as he’s here with you.

You don’t know how long the hug lasts, but it feels like hours before he’s looking into your eyes and you’re carding a hand through his hair and, the next thing you know, you’re pulling him down to press your lips to his; and this one very different from being kissed on the edge of a massive, airborne ship, half-conscious from blood loss and the wind this close from blowing you over, but different in the best way possible. You get to experience the vigorous heart fluttering, the shape of his smile against your own, the way his hands slide into place on your hips as he sets you down on a desk behind him, and you’re tipped off by the happiness and lightness that’s tingling through your entire body right now that you’re totally lost in the moment, unable to remember much other than this is _so_ overdue and _so_ worth the wait.

You’re both breathless when you reach the unanimous decision to pull away. You rest your forehead against his, noses brushing, the tips of your eyelashes touching his cheeks. Your hand runs along his jaw to curl around the his neck and you close your eyes.

“That was good,” you breathe, the smallest of smiles tugging at your lips. “Thank you for cooperating with me for once.”

Tony sniffles, a single tear drawing a silver trail against his cheek as a radiant, rare smile breaks across his face.


End file.
